Recession talk is on the rise lately, and for an obvious reason: the economic data has been weak. Yesterday’s monthly update on retail sales, for instance, reveals that spending in the US rose a tepid 0.1%. Soft data can be found in several other indicators, including industrial production, the ISM Manufacturing Index, and flat-to-slightly-negative growth in the US monetary base. (For an overview, see last month’s economic profile.) The markets are also pricing in higher macro risk, as I discussed earlier this week. It all adds up to a troubling environment that may be an early clue that the US is headed for a new recession. But there’s an alternative scenario: slow/sluggish growth that feels like a recession but doesn’t lead to the standard NBER-defined downturn.

This is a controversial idea at the moment for the simple reason that the post-war history of US economic activity offers no precedent for economic activity that muddles forward while avoiding strong growth and deep slumps. Rather, the past 60-plus years have delivered variations on what can be described as relatively clear periods of growth, interrupted by brief recessions, which are then followed by robust recoveries, and so on. But there’s a growing suspicion that the “normal” cycle has been upended by the Great Recession and its aftermath. It’s premature to embrace this idea as fact, in part because the past six years since the recession ended are but one relatively short historical sample that’s still unfolding. Macro insight arrives slowly, and with a considerable lag. Meanwhile, all the usual complications that harass the thankless task of distilling macro “truth” are still with us. Nonetheless, the clues are starting to add up and it’s possible that we’ve entered what may be the twilight zone for the US business cycle.

How did we get here? The basic narrative is well known at this point. The worst economic downturn since the 1930s knocked the US economy for a loop in 2008-2009. The trouble was compounded by a severe financial crisis that pushed the system close to meltdown, both here and abroad. In short, 2008-2009 wasn’t your garden variety slump.